


Jacob's not dead.

by jadzeanna



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Descent into Madness, F/M, Horror, MSV Worthington, NOT Jacob Taylor, Rated For Violence and Disturbing Content, Unreliable Narrator, chronic migraines are a bitch. that is all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22485478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadzeanna/pseuds/jadzeanna
Summary: Julia overheard things, now. She couldn’t help it, when her brain was so overclocked that every whisper sounded like a scream.She just needs to get over herself, someone said. She’d never been so furious in her life. They already wanted Julia to hurry up and stop caring about the man who’d all but saved her, and he wasn’t even gone.
Relationships: Julia/Jacob (MSV Worthington)
Kudos: 1





	Jacob's not dead.

**Author's Note:**

> This semi-autobiographical fever dream is dedicated to my fellow chronic migraine sufferers.
> 
> If you'd like to replay it, the MSV Worthington can be found in the Ming system of the Gemini Sigma cluster in the first Mass Effect game. There’s no quest to pick up, but when completed it shows up in the log as “UNC: Lost Freighter”.

The day Julia met Jacob was the best day of her life.

They’d known each other for years – it was impossible not to know someone in such a small town – but she distinctly remembered the first time they really spoke, when she realized how beautiful his eyes were, how melodically he laughed, how fiercely he believed in what was right, how considerate he was to people whose own suffering didn’t match his. He was the first person to see past her condition, past the condition that made her a monster, to the girl underneath.

Things since then weren’t easy for the two of them, but they were both used to difficulty. Living in a tiny, dead-end town where work was scarce made every day a fight for survival, not just of their livelihoods, but of their spirits. She couldn’t hold down a proper job, so she did small freelance gigs when she could, and sometimes they lived off Jacob’s meager income while she was borderline delirious and in agony for weeks on end. Sometimes she swore Jacob’s love was all that kept her going. When things got really tough, and they weren’t sure how they’d be able to keep their apartment heated or put food on the table, they would drive out onto the plains, lie on a blanket, hold hands and look at the constellations together. The stars were both of their first loves.

If their relationship had one fault line, it was that Jacob hated change. He was comfortable in their small town, the only home he ever knew. Julia hated that town and everything about it. But she loved Jacob, and his happiness meant far more to her than her own. So they skimped and scrounged and found a way to make things work.

Sometimes, Julia would dream of getting out. She’d find a job somewhere else, one that didn’t care that she was an L2 biotic freak, didn’t care that sometimes her migraines took her out for a week at a time, and it would pay enough to get a less dingy apartment, and then she would save up so she could leave Earth entirely and move somewhere vibrant. Her uncle, Bruce Worthington, was owner and captain of a ship doing various cargo runs; sometimes she imagined he would hire her to work for him, and she’d get to see all sorts of alien worlds and sights and people. She would party with asari and vacation on the Citadel.

Jacob didn’t want to leave their tiny middle-of-fucking-nowhere town, and Julia wanted to be with Jacob more than she wanted freedom and adventure. So she stayed, and made do, and sometimes, when they looked at the stars together, she would dream of a world where he wanted to explore the galaxy with her.

_(Jacob’s worth it.)_

Julia could live with it, most of the time. But when the opportunity stared her in the face, the decision was suddenly much harder to make.

Uncle Bruce’s ship had an accident; he swore it was the kind of freak incident that’s impossible to predict or anticipate. A power coupling exploded during repairs, giving three crewmen significant burns, and all three decided to quit their job and stay planetside. He was able to replace one of them, but the other two spots on the crew roster remained unfilled for almost a year, and finally he begged Julia to help him out. It was unskilled, manual labor, so her lack of credentials wouldn’t matter. Since they had been able to get by without the two spots for a year, they’d be able to get by without her when her condition took her out. In other words, it was perfect.

Julia said no. Of course she did; Jacob was more important.

But a month passed, and even when she was well she couldn’t find anything to do with herself, and she found herself puttering around the house wondering when her life would amount to more than it was. So she decided to convince Jacob. It started with hints about how glorious it would be to live among the stars, the excitement of everything out there, hoping he might express some interest. When that didn’t work, she told him all about how the offer was still open and she really wished the two of them could take it. When that didn’t work, she started dropping passive-aggressive hints about how miserable she was and how she’d rather be in space, until he finally got angry with her for trying to manipulate him. They had a huge fight – crying, screaming, throwing household objects. He walked out at the end, and didn’t come back for nearly a month. It was the worst month of Julia’s life. She was so messed up that she hardly even remembered it.

Jacob came back at the end. He said he would go with her on two conditions: one, that it was only a one year trial run to see if he could stand it, and if it didn’t work he would quit and move back home; and two, that when that year was over, if they could stand living with each other, she would marry him.

Julia was in heaven. Jacob grumbled at first, but he acclimated to life on a cargo ship better than he’d anticipated. They learned how to take inventory, load and unload cargo, and some basic ship maintenance. Julia’s biotics were actually useful for once, allowing her to handle the same physical workload as a large man despite being small and frail. Julia never got over the buoyant giddiness she felt in the half-second between the FTL drive activating and the gravity plating adjusting for it, nor the adrenaline jolt every time they passed through a mass relay. Her migraines got less common, and sometimes she forgot she had them at all. They visited half a dozen worlds, each more alien than the last. Jacob was thrilled that Julia was happy.

For ten months, everything was perfect.

Then came the day that changed everything. She’ll replay the events of that day over and over again, meticulously analyzing every side. They will be etched in her mind forever.

Some ship maintenance they had to do was easier than others. Sometimes, though, the sensor array outside the ship needs repairs, and the drone that would normally do them refused to work because they didn’t have standard parts or anything that would meet specifications. This time the ship’s mechanic, a broad guy called Jim, needed a second set of hands, and Jacob volunteered to take a couple hours and help out. Jim also needed someone on the inside to check the coolant pressure in the extensor assembly, so Julia found the diagnostic panel and kept a voice channel open. The repairs went well, and the sensor array was back to full functionality in under an hour.

Jacob and Jim were just working to reattach the last hull panel when it happened.

There is no medium to conduct sound in space, so no noise came over the voice link until Julia heard Jacob say, “shit,” under his breath, and a steady hiss.

“Jacob?” Jim’s voice sounded strained over the line.

“Sorry, I think I just…” Jacob replied, and Julia heard fumbling noises. The hissing grew louder. “I think I have an air leak.”

“No shit. Let me get that. You’ve still got two hours of air to burn, and I just need your help checking that and replacing the hull panel. It’ll be fine.”

Julia just sat there, helplessly, terrified with no idea what to do, feeling like the world was spinning and pressing in around her. It was another ten minutes before Jim pulled Jacob’s limp body through the airlock, calling for the doctor. His oxygen ran out quickly, and Jim wasn’t able to fix the broken component that tore the hole on his own, and they didn’t have a third EVA suit, so the ship couldn’t go anywhere from this middle-of-nowhere system where they’d only stopped because of the sensor issues, and couldn’t afford help that would arrive any sooner than two weeks.

Jacob was frostbitten from exposure and oxygen-deprived. Unresponsive, Dr. Smith said, but he’d see if there was anything he could do. He hooked him up to life support and set about trying to stabilize his other systems.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Dr. Smith wouldn’t let Julia stay at Jacob’s side, so she sat across the room and watched him and tried to remember how to breathe until the doctor kicked her out. Uncle Bruce gave her the day off, so she just went to the small room she and Jacob shared, hugged his pillow, and cried.

Julia woke up in the middle of ship’s night feeling like she was being ripped in two head-first, heart pounding in her ears, and she reached for Jacob only to find empty air. He’d helped her every time she had an episode, but now she was stuck suffering alone, and Jacob was injured. Medicine, she needed medicine. She sat up silently cursing her stomach, and forced herself out of bed. Leaned on the wall, held her other arm over her eyes to make it down the always-lit hallway. When she reached the small sickbay and made it through the door, she let herself fall into the first chair she saw and leaned forwards, elbows on her knees and palms covering her eyes. The quiet buzzing of motors across the room tangled underneath Julia’s skull.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Dr. Smith called, and Julia winced against the sound.

She dared peek through the fingers of one hand because she had to know. Dr. Smith was still doing microsurgery, thus the buzzing. It had been an awfully long time; Jacob must have been hurt worse than Julia thought. But if Dr. Smith thought he could help him, then he would have to be okay. Julia needed him too much for anything else.

After a few minutes that felt like years, the buzzing stopped, and the only thing left to torture Julia was the relentless throbbing of her own pulse, that raced through her skull in a never-ending panic. Dr. Smith stepped softly away, then somewhere else, then made his way to a chair next to Julia and handed her a small cup with two pills and a glass of water. His hand grazed the back of her neck and found the emergency release for her biotic amp, which sent a soothing chill down her spine as it disconnected.

Julia took the pills and just enough water to get them down, tried not to cringe as they slid down her throat seemingly as slowly as possible, then traded the cups for her amp and sat back, eyes closed, trying to think clearly enough to ask the right questions.

“I’m doing everything I can,” said Dr. Smith, voice mercifully low and quiet. “He was exposed for a long time, and his neurological activity is deteriorating, but I haven’t given up on him yet. He’s in good hands. I’ll be able to tell you more in the morning. Go get some rest, sleep off the migraine.”

Julia made it back to her room, lay down in bed, and counted her heartbeats. Time and again she lost track and started counting again, until the numbers all blurred together and darkness finally took her.

When she woke up again, it was late morning, but the world still burned sideways, and Jacob still wasn’t at her side. Her stomach wasn’t so upset, though, and she was able to get to sickbay more easily this time.

Dr. Smith gave her another dose of medicine. Then he apologized, said he wasn’t able to do much for Jacob, but the human body is an amazing thing and they’d give him a chance to start improving on his own, even though the odds of him making it were slim. Julia was only half listening, couldn’t quite follow what the doctor was saying except that Jacob might still get better. She didn’t care what the odds were. He had to make it. He knew how badly she needed him.

Julia went back to her room and lay in bed again, and the flames in her head, licking ever higher, didn’t even have the mercy to let her cry. The pain wouldn’t stop, except now it was in her heart, too.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Julia made it to sickbay again the next day and sat at Jacob’s side for a long, long time, wondering when the abyss would open its hungry jaws and swallow her whole. Maybe then it would spit Jacob out. He was always the better one. He was patient, kind, loving, hardworking, even when she was easily frustrated, had trouble keeping friendships, couldn’t fucking hold a normal job. He deserved better than this. He deserved to die of old age, with Julia at his side, surrounded by their many grandchildren. He deserved to be home, back in the shitty town Julia had begged him to leave, where at least he would be happy and surrounded by family. Instead here he was, lying on a hospital bed on a freighter in a middle of nowhere star system, kept alive by life support. Maybe he even deserved someone better than her.

Dr. Smith said he couldn’t do anything more for Julia’s head, either. What a pair she and Jacob made.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Julia knew her nightclothes were dirty and her hair was wild, but she couldn’t stay cramped in her room any longer. Her head pounded with every step, but it pounded horrendously if she sat still too, so she wandered the ship. She tried to go other places, see or at least think about other things, but she always ended up in sick bay, sooner or later.

“Jacob’s neurology never recovered. He’s brain-dead. I’m sorry,” Dr. Smith said, his hand warm on Julia’s shoulder. “All that’s left to do is turn off life support.”

She cringed away from the touch. She didn’t want sympathy. She wanted Jacob.

“You’re giving up?” she asked, every word hammering itself into her skull. The pain of not saying it was worse, she thought, than the pain of forcing the words from her lungs, forming the damning sentences with dry lips. “You said you’d help him. Why won’t you help him?”

Dr. Smith stared at her, brow furrowed. “I did everything I could. Maybe if we’d had access to a proper hospital, there are a couple more things they could have tried, but even then, he was oxygen-deprived for too long. The human brain isn’t very good at healing.”

“I thought you were a doctor! You can’t let him die.” There was a hole in her chest, and it was Jacob, and he was slipping away. “You said if we get him to a hospital…? There has to be something you can do!” The words were slower now; she was running out of coherency, couldn’t follow the trains of her thoughts as far as she needed to. She grabbed Dr. Smith’s forearm with one clumsy hand. “Please.”

Instead of answering, the doctor started asking Julia questions. How was she feeling, has she been sleeping, when was the last time she ate or drank anything, had she ever felt like this before. She’d never felt like this before. The lights were shimmering in her eyes, dripping down her cheeks in burning desperation, and the galaxy was backwards. Jacob. She just wanted Jacob. She had no idea how she would get by without him.

He said she was depressed, that it was a normal reaction to the circumstances. He couldn’t do anything for her headaches, but he had something that might help her calm down enough to sleep, and then her head might resolve itself. She’d been down that road before and knew where it would lead. The medicine he wanted to give her would make her numb to the agony clawing at the inside of her chest. It would make her stop caring about Jacob. She’d been there before, and it was no price to pay for ease. Couldn’t they see Jacob needed her? Dr. Smith handed Julia two pills and a glass of water. She pretended to swallow them, but slipped them into her palm instead.

Eventually he said she could have time to mourn, that there was no rush to unplug the life support, and left her be. Julia sat at Jacob’s bedside for a long time again, holding his hand in both of hers. He's brain dead, they said. But his hand was still warm. His face was still the man she loved.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

If the doctor wouldn’t do anything for Jacob, she would have to do it herself. He’d said that a proper hospital could have better medical facilities; maybe if they got their ship to a colony they’d be able to treat Jacob. They would have to have something to try. Jacob wasn’t dead.

Julia overheard things, now. She couldn’t help it, when her brain was so overclocked that every whisper sounded like a scream. They were wondering when she would disconnect Jacob’s life support and move on. _She just needs to get over herself_ , someone said. She’d never been so furious in her life. They already wanted Julia to hurry up and stop caring about the man who’d all but saved her, and he wasn’t even gone.

Now as Julia kept wandering the ship, she let that anger bubble up underneath her burning, constrictive skin. The world was broken, and someone had stolen Jacob from her. She wanted to know what had gone wrong. She wanted to know what she could have done differently. She wanted to know who to blame. Most of all, she wanted a way to save Jacob. He was dangling in front of her, always just out of reach. And now the gossip on the ship every time they thought she was out of earshot insisted she was crazy, that she was overly attached, that she needed to stop feeling, that he was just a worthless corpse. Julia wished she could open an airlock and silence their cruel words.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

She didn’t want to face Uncle Bruce, not after all this. It was his fault, she decided. He had the incident with the power coupling almost two years ago, and this was yet another freak accident hurting his crew. He didn’t take proper care of his ship, was too cheap to use real repair parts. She hated him with her entire soul. If he had only kept the appropriate spare parts in stock they would already be unloading cargo on Illium, but no. Instead, his stinginess stole Jacob from her. But he found her wandering the hallways anyway, and he pulled her into a long, tight hug, and she choked up with suppressed rage.

Later, she stood outside sickbay, some force beyond her comprehension keeping her hand hovering over the door panel. And the doctor’s voice came into focus. He must be gossiping, too, because he was talking about her. About Jacob.

“There's nothing any of us can do for him now except let him die with dignity. It's what he would want.”

Julia clenched her fist, unconsciously shifting her muscles in familiar patterns. She wasn’t amped, of course, so nothing happened. Who was Dr. Smith to assume he knew what Jacob wanted? Sure, Jacob had been friendly with everyone on the ship, but Julia was the only one who really knew him. The electricity sizzling along her nerves was only her own rage.

“I'm more worried about Julia now,” the doctor eventually continued, unaware. “She's showing signs of severe depression. I gave her some meds that should help, but I better warn the captain.”

Julia didn’t enter sickbay that evening. She walked slow laps around the cargo bay and thought about what she heard the doctor say. _I better warn the captain_. He was going to, what, tell Uncle Bruce that Julia was broken? So that she would get denied her right as Jacob’s next of kin, and they could kill him, and forcibly medicate her, and take away what little humanity she had left?

Long into the night, when she had tried and failed to sleep, she sat at her desk and opened the drawer. She stared for a long time at the small piece of technology that waited there, sitting on its charger like any ordinary day. She remembered the way people laughed at her pain behind her back, refused to take her seriously. Flexed her fingers, imagined the faint tingling was a glowing blue crackle, the smell of ozone and the thrill of power. Imagined _throwing_ the man who’d said she was better off without Jacob. Was it worth making the pain worse? Could pain be any worse than losing him? She reached into her drawer with one hand, drew her hair aside with the other, and slid her biotic amp into its socket.

The world lurched, and she held back a heave, and her spine roared, and Julia was high on power. She slipped Jacob’s pocket knife into the pocket of her robe, for backup. She would make them pay for betraying Jacob. And maybe, maybe she would get there in time to save him.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

“He wouldn't want to be kept alive by machines, so we're going to disconnect his life support.”

Julia was disturbed her own uncle say such hateful lies, but she wasn’t surprised. Dr. Smith had made good on his plans, obviously, and twisted Uncle Bruce against Jacob, against Julia. She stepped closer, gliding silently down the hallway, determined not to miss anything.

“Dr. Smith is worried about Julia's reaction, though. She can't seem to let Jacob go. The stress is making her implants flare up, causing intense migraines.”

No shit. Of course it was her _powers’_ fault that she was disabled. Poor Julia, poisoned by eezo, broken and pathetic. Nobody would bother trying to understand her the way Jacob had. It’s funny, though. She’d assumed using her amp would make the pain worse, but that was just what they told her. Instead, she felt calmer than she had in a long time. She’d made her choice, she would do whatever was necessary, and then she and Jacob would be together again.

That peace was shattered by the next words out of Uncle Bruce’s mouth.

“It'll probably be easier for everyone if we don't tell her until after we shut the life support down. Give her a chance to—”

That lying bastard. The world spun violently, and Julia retched onto the hallway floor. Now or never. She flexed her fingers and pressed the panel to open the door, smiling so widely that her chapped lips burned.

“Julia? What are you doing here? Why are you—”

He screamed as she _threw_ him against the console. The computer made a noise in protest, but she ignored it. The computer didn’t matter anymore. Only one thing mattered: Uncle Bruce was not going to kill Jacob.

“Julia, stop! We can help you!”

“You just want to kill him!” she screeched, stepping closer, yanking him into a standing position by his hair. He tried to scramble out of her way, but she held tight. She had worried so much when in retrospect it was so easy the whole time. Her head pounded, but she took the knife from her pocket, flipped it open, carved a deep line across her uncle’s neck, and threw him back against the console.

He gurgled something that sounded like words and grasped at his throat as he slid to the floor, but it was too late. He made himself a monster. It wasn’t her fault.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Uncle Bruce, whose negligence all but killed Jacob, had been plotting to finish the job. And now he lay on the floor, flailing and gurgling and grasping weakly at her foot as the pool of blood grew around him. Julia started giggling, and couldn’t stop. She had done it, she really did it. She laughed harder, tears streaming down her cheeks as his movements slowed to a halt, blood stopped spurting in pulses from his neck, and he was dead, truly dead. She had won. He couldn’t do anything to her anymore.

She was brought out of her hysterics by a harsh buzzing noise. The computer terminal was damaged where blood had dripped between the cracks, and wouldn’t work anymore. She didn’t have a set of computer gloves with her, so it’s not like she could have answered it anyway. The lights were stabbing her eyes again, and her own laughter had become painful. She was exhausted, herself, ready to lie on the floor and wait for darkness to take her.

She sat heavily in his chair and inhaled long, gasping breaths. She’d killed her uncle, really murdered him in cold blood, and her mouth tasted like vomit, and her hand and nightgown were covered in blood. She wanted to cry, but she felt already wrung out. She wanted to see Jacob. Maybe he would tell her that everything was okay.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

“Captain? You in there?”

The man’s voice called from the other side of the door, grating against Julia’s ears. She willed him to go away, but resignedly gathered her strength to stand up. When the door slid open, she was ready to kill him too. He wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t.

She dripped blood as she walked to sickbay. Dr. Smith was next. He’d been kind to her, promised she could wait until she was ready, but now he was going behind her back to kill Jacob. She pleaded for help, then when he approached her she gathered her strength and punched him hard enough to hear a sickening _crack_ , and Dr. Smith collapsed. She checked the life support monitors and felt weak with relief. He hadn’t killed Jacob yet, and now he never could.

She made her way to the engines next, to find Jim. He had asked Jacob’s help with the repairs, and knew that Jacob didn’t understand the systems they were fixing. He’d let Jacob make the mistake that ruptured his EVA suit. He’d insisted on trying to fix the ship rather than bring Jacob inside. He’d let it go on long enough for Jacob to be hurt in the first place. He would pay for his crimes, too. It was nothing less than justice that Julia enacted when she grabbed his shoulders and biotically headbutted him hard enough to snap his neck.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

She’d painted herself into a corner. Everyone who saw her realized something had happened, and it was only a matter of time before they figured out what she did and tried to stop her, so she killed them, too. She was only enacting the balance of things. They had to die so Jacob could stay alive. She was righteous.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Julia was still unwell, her thoughts grinding like poorly-oiled gears. She drifted aimlessly through the ship in her bloodstained nightgown. She set up traps for intruders with repurposed power cells. She took a hand pistol from security and kept it in her pocket. More people would come to kill him, and she wouldn’t let them.

She remembered, as she sidestepped bodies along the unnaturally empty hallways of a dead ship, how Jacob had defended her. When it began, they were in high school, and she had just transferred back after the disbandment of the Alliance’s biotic training program. She was small, and afraid, and horribly socially inept, and her peers called her awful things. Her teachers wouldn’t speak up against their precious favorites. The administration didn’t believe her. Her parents weren’t around to do anything. But Jacob, friendly, clever Jacob, stepped in. He saw them harassing her and said _that’s not right_. He talked back when she couldn’t, to the people who threatened her. He sat with her at lunch, and walked her home from school, and never made her feel any less than him. He protected her, and with him, she wasn't alone.

All that mattered anymore was defending Jacob. It was the least she could do to pay him back.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

Eventually outsiders came. She heard footsteps and ran to investigate, then heard a gruff voice acknowledge her. A Krogan, if her memory served her right. At least the other two looked human. They set off one of her traps, then defused the rest with bullets as they proceeded. A man’s voice commented that they should be careful around the traps.

Julia stayed out of their way and watched. She thought they might choose to save Jacob. If they listened to the crew's audio logs and found out what she'd done – maybe they'll understand she had to do it, she had no choice—

They heard her own diary, early on, when she confessed that she didn’t take the pills she was offered.

They heard Dr. Smith’s log, saying Jacob was brain dead and that he was worried about Julia.

They heard Uncle Bruce’s recording. “He wouldn’t want to be kept alive by machines,” he’d said. Hah! Jacob would have wanted to live, for Julia. He had wanted to marry her.

But Julia had interrupted that recording. He’d needed to be stopped, and now the intruders knew it was her, knew she’d killed him. She ran to sickbay to check on Jacob, and they caught up before she knew it. They’d found out, so now they were going to punish her by taking Jacob away. Well, they couldn’t have him. Her biotics burned, and she screamed at them. She was not going down without a fight.

_(Jacob’s not dead.)_

The intruders may have wanted to subdue her without lethal force, but Julia was strong and determined. She threw up a barrier, lifted the humans, tried to push the Krogan—

Underestimating the Krogan was a horrible mistake, but in her defense, Julia had never seen one before. He punched her, and she stumbled back, dropping the two humans. His shotgun fired, and her barrier crackled and fell.

She stepped back, then, biotic energy roaring. She gathered up her rage and pushed the Krogan away. He grumbled as he fell into a pile of medical supplies.

Julia’s shoulder went white. One of the humans shot it. She lurched and fell, but held her gun with the other arm. She was faint, her dress soaked again in fresh blood, and this time it was hers. She lifted her good arm, even as it shook, and fired at one of the humans, but he simply walked up and kicked the gun out of her hand. She clawed, screamed, begged them not to do it, but she was fading still, and before long was too weak to even do that.

The last thing Julia saw before the world went black was one of the intruders unplugging Jacob from life support.

_(Jacob… I love you.)_

_(I’m sorry.)_


End file.
